Matthew Salzano, Ph.D.

IDEA Fellow

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Matthew Salzano is Stony Brook’s IDEA Fellow in Ethical AI, Information Systems, and Data Science and Literacy applied to Complex Structures and Networks. He holds a joint appointment with the School of Communication and Journalism/Alda Center for Communicating Science and the Program in Writing and Rhetoric.

Matthew is a scholar of rhetoric and digital culture with a particular emphasis on how digital technology, including artificial intelligence, impacts and interacts with social justice and participatory practices of deliberation, argumentation, and protest. Throughout his research and teaching, he questions: what does it mean to participate ethically in civic life in a digital age?

Matthew’s scholarship has appeared in Critical Studies in Media Communication, Women’s Studies in Communication, and Communication Teacher, and has received awards from the Association for the Rhetoric of Science, Technology, and Medicine, and the National Communication Association. He holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in communication from the University of Maryland and a B.A. in communication and women’s and gender studies from Pacific Lutheran University.

Matthew is deeply committed to empowering his students as they explore and engage with complex ideas, to test ideas and disagree respectfully, and to create an open and welcoming space for all to reflect on what it means and how to live in a diverse and inclusive society. 

His courses explore the history, theory, and criticism of media and rhetoric from a critical perspective, and students can often expect to experiment with digital humanities projects like making Twitter bots or building digital archives.    

Stony Brook’s IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access) Fellows program aims to catalyze Stony Brook’s commitment to inclusive solutions-driven research and scholarship in themes of critical importance and cross-disciplinary strength at the university.